I’ve had a MK4S for over a week now, and 100% of the prints I’ve tried to make on the textured sheets have partially or totally failed. PLA prints beautifully on the smooth sheet, but PLA, PETG and ABS, I think I could print on the surface of a 10 inch tank of oil with more success than the textured sheet. Plastic doesn’t stick to it. I’ve wiped it with isopopyl, I’ve washed it with dawn…it’s a bad print surface and I want my money back.
So to that wall of text, I’ll say:
I’ve been 3D printing on glass with glue stick for a decade. The procedure for cleaning the glass has been rinse in the sink with water, wipe dry on shirt, put on printer. You can touch it with your hands, it can exist in Earth’s atmosphere…
PEI plates can’t. One fingerprint and it’s destroyed forever unless you clean it in a way the manufacturer says will destroy it forever. PEI is stupid.
I have not had problems with glass or PEI. Your other comments indicate you tried ABS. That will never work without an enclosure, and even then, it will not work particularly well on any Cartesian machine. Sorry that illustrative examples and abstractive reasoning are offensive to you.
ABS is a well-known bastard plastic. I avoid it when I can. I print in PLA or PETG almost entirely.
Printing on glass with glue stick, I could soak the build plate in engine oil, wash it with Gojo, rinse it with tap water, dry it with the T-shirt I’ve been wearing all day, smear it with glue stick and anything an E3Dv6 will melt will stick to it.
Meanwhile y’all are out here cautioning against drying PEI with anything that has ever been in my washing machine because it might transfer trace amounts of fabric softener to the plate and I don’t have time for that mickey mouse bullshit. I ordered a power tool not a clean room experiment.
It is just a cleanliness standard. It is not required. I spent a decade in the details of automotive paint. I only covered the surface basics for paint. What I call clean for paint is an order of magnitude more dirty than a surgeon, and they are orders of magnitude more dirty than a silicon chip foundry. When it comes to making plastic stick and look pretty, an automotive painter might be helpful for framing the scope of what is possible. All I can tell you is I have a Prusa and never have these problems, so I explained my experience and methodology as to why I do as I said. Again, sorry this upsets you.
The part that really upsets me is that, when I say “I don’t like PEI, what are other, non-PEI build surfaces?” People respond with walls of text about how to print on PEI which isn’t the god damn mother fucking question I asked.